


Paper, Porcelain, Gold

by RobotSquid



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Anniversary, Death from Old Age, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Katsuki Yuuri in Lingerie, M/M, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-29
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:55:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27774145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobotSquid/pseuds/RobotSquid
Summary: Five of Yuuri and Victor's most memorable wedding anniversaries, from the first to the last.
Relationships: Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov
Comments: 9
Kudos: 129





	Paper, Porcelain, Gold

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written any Victuuri in about a year and half, and with the 4th anniversary just passing I had to show my boys some love again. The fact that the teaser for Ice Adolescence dropped this week definitely helped too!! Please enjoy my little love letter to Yuuri and Victor, my most favorite ship <3 I threw a little of everything in here: some domesticity, some PWP, some h/c. All the good stuff!
> 
> Also please just know that the MCD tag is here because of the ending, it is not a major part of the story!

**The 1 st Year**

The first year crept up on them. It wasn’t as if they didn’t know the date as well as they knew their own names, but it just came around so fast. The weeks before and after the wedding had been a blur. Planning the wedding was bad enough without moving in on top of everything else. Settling into a new country, even one he’d been in many times before, was a whirlwind of culture shock that had Yuuri so anxious some nights he became sick.

But through it all, Victor had been there. He’d been there to help plan the ceremony and reception and coordinate all of Yuuri’s things being shipped over from Japan. He’d been there to hold Yuuri’s hand through all the little adjustments, to teach him Russian every day, and tell him, over and over, how much he loved him.

After it all, Yuuri just wanted to rest. He took the following summer to himself to just relax, and as time went on, a routine in this new place began to form.

Yuuri looked at his phone two months before their first anniversary and blinked. Was it really that time again already? How had it been a whole year?

Almost immediately, he started to panic. He hadn’t even been thinking of gifts, he had no idea what he was going to get Victor. Should he have planned something before now? What if Victor had something planned? Should they be talking about this or just surprising each other…?

“What’s that face about?” Victor asked as he came into the room with two steaming cups of tea. He set one on the coffee table in front of Yuuri and sat down on the couch.

“Nothing,” Yuuri lied. He moved his legs aside for Victor to sit, then unconsciously put his feet in Victor’s lap.

Victor’s brow furrowed just the tiniest bit, and Yuuri felt a twinge of guilt. In the past year since moving in together, it had become virtually impossible to lie to his husband.

“Just…our uh, first anniversary is coming up,” Yuuri murmured. He reached for the tea and blew the steam gently away.

Victor blinked at him. He didn’t speak.

After a few seconds passed, it was Yuuri’s turn to furrow his brow. “You _did_ know that, right?”

“Yes!” Victor exclaimed, almost too quickly. “Yes, of course I did!”

“Then what’s that face about?” Yuuri asked with a cheeky smirk.

Victor averted his eyes and glanced over at where Makkachin was napping in her dog bed. “I was just…thinking about how I didn’t have anything planned,” he admitted after a moment, his cheeks coloring.

“Oh,” said Yuuri. “Well, me either.” He actually felt a wave of relief wash over him. So they were both at a loss together.

“Do you want to do something special?”

“It sort of feels like we should, doesn’t it?”

Victor looked back at him. “To be honest, I’ve thought of a lot of things but none of them quite feel right.” He blushed deeper. “Sometimes I feel like all I want to do is marry you again.”

Yuuri felt his face go red hot. Victor put one hand on Yuuri’s ankle and squeezed gently.

“You know,” Victor went on, “I heard that in America, couples save a slice of their wedding cake and eat it a year later.”

Yuuri wrinkled his nose in mild distaste. “I think it’s a little late for that.”

“We could get a new cake.” Victor’s face lit up. “We’ll eat the whole thing in one sitting.”

“Oh I’m sure Yakov would absolutely love that,” Yuuri giggled. “‘Sorry Coach, we can’t come to practice today because we ate twelve thousand calories last night.’“

“It wouldn’t be the first time I missed practice for a reason like that,” Victor laughed.

“Well…really, what do you want to do?” Yuuri stretched his foot lazily and Victor rubbed the bottom of it. “I know you like surprises but…I think it might be better if we planned something.”

Victor looked towards the ceiling, thinking. “How about I take you to the most exclusive, expensive restaurant in St. Petersburg?”

“Hmm….” Yuuri pretended to consider it. “The absolute most expensive?”

“Yes,” said Victor with a grin. “I will empty my bank account just to please you, my love.”

Yuuri laughed. “Well, if you did that, how would you keep buying me things?”

“You make a very good point, as always.” Victor sighed. “Okay. You can pick the restaurant, just try not to make a beggar of me.”

“Are you sure? I don’t really know what’s good around here….”

“Yuuri, we’ve been living in Russia for ten months. Your Russian is already excellent, and you know more of the city than you give yourself credit for.”

Yuuri made an unsure face. “Fine.” He picked his phone back up. “But if I mess it up it’s your fault.”

Victor happily settled into the couch. He turned on the TV and started massaging Yuuri’s feet as his husband picked out where to spend their first anniversary dinner.

**The 8 th Year**

The eighth year was the first one they spent apart.

It wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Yuuri had been out of the country for a promotional photoshoot with his new sponsors, and his flight home was scheduled to arrive the day of their anniversary. It never occurred to Yuuri that there might be any weather delays this time of year. After all, when did it ever really snow in April?

Except for that one time, of course. The day Victor had shown up at the onsen, in a flurry of boxes and snowflakes, to reach down into the depths of Yuuri’s defeatism and drag him back up into the world. It was why they’d chosen that day for their wedding. Every year so far, it had been a beautiful spring day.

But now there was a blizzard in St. Petersburg, and they weren’t accepting any landings until the runways could be deiced. Yuuri felt a churning sickness in his stomach as he watched the display screens change from DELAYED to CANCELLED. As if in a trance, he pulled out his phone and dialed Victor’s number, swallowing back the urge to burst into tears.

“Yuuri!” Victor sang as he answered the phone.

“Hi, love you,” Yuuri mumbled.

“What’s wrong?” Victor’s tone changed immediately.

“Um…f-flight’s canceled.”

“No!” Victor cried. “Oh, Yuuri, really?”

Maybe it was the stress of the entire trip – Yuuri had never really gotten comfortable with long, intense photoshoots even after all these years – or maybe it was the abject disappointment in Victor’s voice, which his brain always tried to warp into disappointment at Yuuri specifically, but it was at that moment that the tears spilled over.

“Really,” Yuuri replied, turning away to face a nearby wall so no one would see him crying. “I’m so sorry. I’m going to go to the desk in a minute to see when the next flight is. I’m sorry, Victor.”

“Sweetheart, it’s not your fault. You don’t have to apologize.”

“But…tomorrow is….”

Victor sighed. “I know.”

There was silence for a while as Yuuri struggled not to sob. Victor must hate him right now, must think he’s such a fuck-up for doing something like this so close to such an important date…maybe Victor had had something super special planned and spent so much money on it, money that was now going to waste….

“Yuuri?” came Victor’s voice. “What’s the matter, love?”

“I’m just sorry,” Yuuri blurted out, and he shoved his fingers under his glasses to wipe at his eyes. “I shouldn’t have taken this trip so close to our anniversary.”

“Oh, Yuuri, you didn’t do it on purpose! It’s okay, these things happen.”

“But I—”

“You know I once missed my mother’s birthday two years in a row?” Victor interrupted him. “It just happens in this business. It’s not personal.”

“I know, but…I just….”

“Do you think I’m mad at you? Because I’m not.”

“I don’t want you to think that I don’t care about our anniversary anymore!”

There was some unexpected silence at the other end of the line, and for a moment Yuuri thought he’d really done it now. Of course that was what Victor thought, Yuuri had hit the nail on the head and Victor was trying to think of a way to admit it.

“Yuuri,” Victor’s smooth, sweet voice said. “My love. My dearest husband who I love more than anything and anyone else in the world. I have never once thought that of you, nor do I think you would ever not care about us.”

Yuuri wanted to cry harder, but he swallowed it back.

“It’s just a day. We have every day together. When you get home we’ll celebrate just like we always do, okay?”

Yuuri took a deep breath. “Okay. Um…okay.” He sniffled and tried to compose himself. He should have known that Victor would be able to pull him back from the edge. “You promise you’re not mad?”

“I promise,” Victor said, and Yuuri could hear the smile in his voice.

“All right, uh….” Yuuri cleared his throat. “I’m going to uh…go talk to the desk attendant. See what I can do.”

“Call me back once you have something, all right? I love you.”

“I love you too.”

In the end, Yuuri had been able to secure a flight for the next morning, which would put him home a day later than expected. It did have a connection before leaving California, but the layover was short enough that it barely mattered. All in all, not the disaster that Yuuri had been anticipating.

He called Victor back, and his husband picked up on the first ring.

“Sooo?” Victor asked with a singsong lilt.

“I have something that leaves at 6 tomorrow morning. Well….” Yuuri checked his watch. “It’s already 1 A.M. so I guess 6…today morning.”

“That’s great! Did they set you up in a hotel?”

“They offered it to me but I wouldn’t be able to sleep. I’m just going to wait around here for a few hours.”

“Want some company?”

Yuuri giggled. “Sure. I’m on my way to find something to eat.”

“Put your video on, I want to pretend like I’m there with you.”

Yuuri held out his phone and turned on the camera. Victor’s face came into view: he was sitting on the couch with Makkachin napping on his lap. Yuuri felt his heart swell with homesickness.

“There’s my handsome man,” Victor said, grinning wide.

“Ugh.” Yuuri glanced at the tiny window of his own face at the top of the screen. “I look terrible. I’ve been running around for the last twenty hours or something.”

“You look _beautiful_ ,” Victor insisted.

Yuuri rolled his eyes fondly. “You always say that. I’m going to be old and disgusting one day, you know.”

“Old, maybe. Disgusting, never.”

Yuuri found an airport map and flipped the camera out so Victor could see his choices. There was the usual fare: fast food, coffee, a sports bar. Most of them were closed at this time of night, but one lone pizza place was still open until 2.

“Did I ever tell you,” Victor said as Yuuri began his walk, “that one time when I was young, I paid a guy that was sitting next to me on the plane a hundred dollars for his slice of pizza?”

“No!” Yuuri laughed. “Why’d you do that?”

“I was on a trip kind of like what you’re doing now, and I wanted it to be over with so I packed my last day full of way too many meetings. I didn’t have time to eat before I got on the plane, and I was dying of hunger. Someone sat down next to me with a brand-new, fresh pizza right out of the oven. I _begged_ him to let me have it and I ended up just giving him all the money in my wallet.”

Yuuri burst out laughing. “Was it even good pizza?”

“Oh, absolutely not. It was terrible. But in the moment, it was the best thing I’d ever had.”

After arriving at the restaurant and ordering a huge slice of cheese pizza, Yuuri sat down at a table and propped the phone up for Victor to see.

“Everything is so big in America,” Yuuri said, struggling to hold up the slice. “I feel like I need silverware for this.”

“I know you can fit something of that size in your mouth.”

Yuuri choked and dropped the pizza onto his plate. “Victor!” he hissed quietly. “You’re on _speaker_!” There was no one around actually, but still, Yuuri felt mortified.

Victor burst out laughing. “Sorry, sorry. I’ll behave.”

Yuuri sighed and tried to pick up his food again, but a dark red blush spread throughout his face. “Now I can’t eat. I can see you thinking dirty thoughts.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Victor said with an innocent smile.

“I can’t take you anywhere.” Yuuri took a bite, chewed it while watching Victor’s cheeky grin, and scowled. “What?”

“Have you ever been jealous of a slice of pizza?”

“That’s it, you’re in time out.” Yuuri grabbed the phone and hung up. He ate the rest of his food in blissful silence as Victor sent text after text of crying emojis, overwrought apologies, and photos of his own sad face.

When he was done, Yuuri gently wiped the grease from his hands and dialed Victor’s number again.

“Yuuriiii, you are so cruel!” Victor pouted.

“I’m sorry,” Yuuri giggled, actually feeling a little bad. “When I get home…you can watch me eat anything you want.” Right after he said it, he cringed. Surely that had been too stupid to say out loud, he’d probably made Victor _less_ attracted to him.

Instead, Victor’s eyes flew open with expectant glee. “That sounds _wonderful_ ,” he purred.

They stayed on the phone with each other for an hour or so until Yuuri needed to hang up and let his phone charge. He slept almost the entire flight back, and by the time they landed it was like no time had passed at all. When Yuuri finally came through the gate, Victor was there waiting with flowers and a box of pizza.

**The 20 th Year**

Things were busy these days. Since both Yuuri and Victor had officially retired and gone on to become full-time coaches, it sometimes felt like those early days when they would be in different countries for days at a time, barely seeing each other. For a while, it was almost novel: time apart meant that their time together felt that much sweeter. Yuuri had forgotten the thrill of presenting his husband with a bouquet of flowers or box of chocolates for no other reason than to see him light up and smile.

But every year after the season wrapped up, they stayed in whatever city they’d landed in and spend another week together for their anniversary. It was a system that had worked well, and it kept Yuuri from having to make any overt plans. He and Victor were good at going out for a walk in any city and finding something to occupy them. The one year they’d found themselves in Barcelona again, the same place Yuuri had proposed, had been the best week of Yuuri’s life.

Things didn’t align quite so perfectly for their twentieth, but Helsinki was just as nice. They’d spent the day walking down by the Kauppatori square, taking pictures at Helsinki Cathedral, and drinking coffee for hours at the Fazer café. It was bitter cold, but Yuuri barely felt it as he hung onto Victor’s arm and walked through the snowy streets.

“Do you know any Finnish?” Yuuri asked as they finally were heading back to their hotel room.

“Only curse words,” Victor said with a wink. “Oh, and ‘thank you.’”

Yuuri laughed. “That’s all you need.”

They stepped into the elevator, and as soon as the doors closed, Victor was on him, pushing Yuuri up against the wall and kissing frantically at his neck.

“Victor!” Yuuri laughed, trying half-heartedly to push him away. Victor’s hands moved down Yuuri’s back and grabbed at the soft flesh above his hips. “Someone might come in!”

“Then you tell me before that happens,” Victor replied, his voice muffled against Yuuri’s skin.

The tickling sensation of Victor’s lips and fingers sent Yuuri giggling, and before he knew it they were at their floor, uninterrupted and unimpeded. Victor stuck his head out of the elevator door and looked up and down the hallway. Grinning devilishly, he picked Yuuri up and slung him over his shoulder, then jogged down to their room.

“Victor!” Yuuri said again, laughing so hard he could hardly breathe. “What are you _doing?_ ”

“I’m about to enjoy a very, very delicious slice of pizza,” Victor said, fumbling in his pocket for the room key.

They got inside and Victor let Yuuri down only to push him back up against the door. He pressed their lips together like a dying man, inadvertently slamming the door shut with a rattling crash.

“You’re so needy right now,” Yuuri said in between kisses. He gripped the lapels of Victor’s coat and pulled him close. Still wrapped up in their winter attire, Yuuri was already beginning to sweat with the heat of lust that was radiating from his every pore. Victor’s face was still chilly from the cold, but melting quickly with each hungry motion of his lips. The scratch of his neatly trimmed beard was a pleasant friction against Yuuri’s numb cheeks.

“I need you…out of this coat,” Victor breathed. He deftly undid the buttons on Yuuri’s coat, his hands steady despite the tremors in the rest of his body.

“Wait, wait,” said Yuuri. He placed his hands on Victor’s chest and gently pushed him away. “I…I actually have…a surprise for you.”

Victor’s eyes went wide and Yuuri could practically see them sparkle. “For me?” he repeated.

“Yes.” Yuuri felt his face growing redder with each second. “Just, um…go to the bedroom. And…get ready, and I’ll be there in a minute.”

Victor pressed a hard kiss to Yuuri’s lips and bounded away to the next room of their suite. Yuuri carefully unwound his scarf, shrugged off his coat, and headed to the closet where he’d stashed the bag.

Even seeing how excited Victor had been, Yuuri felt a moment of doubt. It had been so long since they’d done something like this, they weren’t exactly young kids anymore. Victor was pushing fifty and Yuuri was still trying to wrap his head around how he was in his forties now. But that shouldn’t mean they couldn’t still have a little bit of fun.

He took the bag into the bathroom and pulled out the dark blue negligee. It was a small slip made of blue silk with black lace down the sides. It hung from two impossibly slim spaghetti straps to just barely grace the top of Yuuri’s thighs. He shuffled out of the rest of his clothes and pulled the lingerie on, deliberately turning away from the mirror as he did so. Once everything was in place—thankfully the thing fit, he’d had no chance to try it on at the store—he turned back to see how he looked.

Yuuri had settled into his middle-aged body with more comfort than he’d expected. He wasn’t, of course, in the shape he’d been in at his peak, and he wasn’t nearly as active now that he was only coaching. He was a mix of chubby and muscular that, after all this time, he was okay with. Working on his self-image had been hard, but he was in a good place these days.

He looked good— _really_ good—in this negligee. Yuuri smiled at himself in the mirror and turned sideways and every which way to see what Victor would see. The back didn’t quite cover his ass, the fabric just long enough to leave the bottom of his cheeks visible. Yuuri pulled the white lace panties from the bag and slipped them on. Really, calling them panties was generous – the lace was so sheer Victor would be able to see absolutely everything.

That part done, Yuuri fixed his hair, slicking it back in the way Victor liked, and added just the slightest touch of rouge to his cheeks. In the past years Yuuri had become somewhat famous for wearing a full face of makeup while sitting rinkside, but he only did that sort of thing for his own ego. Victor liked it, of course, but never expected it.

And if he was being honest with himself, Yuuri was too excited to sit there and take the time making sure his eyeliner was right.

Heart racing with excitement, he left the bathroom and went to knock on the bedroom door. “Victor?” he called sweetly. “Are you ready?”

“I’m _dying_ ,” Victor called back.

Yuuri swung the door open, stepped into the door, and shut it behind him. Victor was laid out on the bed wearing nothing but his tiny black underwear—all these years and that was still all he wore—and his most seductive bedroom eyes. The instant he saw Yuuri, his face illuminated with the biggest grin.

“Aaaah, _Yuuri!_ ” Victor exclaimed, flopping over onto his back and laughing ecstatically. “You spoil me!!”

Yuuri giggled and spun in a circle, feeling shy despite himself. “Do you like it?”

Victor sat up, eyes shining. “Turn around again, love. Slowly.”

Yuuri obliged. His face was aflame with euphoria and bliss and desire, his heart jumping like they were newlyweds again. How did Victor still react like this, twenty years on? How had none of this, not a single second, ever gotten old?

Victor scooted to the edge of the bed and sat with his feet on the ground, knees spread. He extended his arms and Yuuri tumbled into them. Victor hugged him close, pressing kisses all over Yuuri’s chest and collarbones, hand gripping greedily at the lace underwear and everywhere else he could touch. Yuuri kissed the top of Victor’s head, still full of platinum silvery hair despite Victor’s fears, and pushed his knee into Victor’s open legs.

“Happy twentieth anniversary, Victor,” he said softly.

“Twenty already?” Victor replied in between kisses. He sounded like he was in a trance. “Didn’t I marry you just this morning?”

Yuuri giggled and felt Victor’s hand reach up to pull one of the shoulder straps down.

“I put this on just for you and you want to take it off already,” Yuuri chided gently.

Victor looked up at him with pleading eyes that could have come straight from Makkachin. “But I don’t want to ruin it when I wreck you later.”

Yuuri raised an eyebrow and untangled himself from Victor’s embrace. He went to his knees on the carpet and reached for Victor’s underwear, slowly pulling it over his sharp hipbones and down around his ankles.

Victor breathed a word that Yuuri didn’t recognize. Upon seeing his quizzical look, Victor said, “Told you I knew Finnish.”

Yuuri rolled his eyes and laughed. Then, without wasting another second, he took Victor’s cock in his hand and slipped his lips around it. Victor exhaled words of praise and love and all sorts of filthy things, digging his hand into Yuuri’s hair and holding on like he would die if he let go.

Sometimes—most of the time, honestly—when Victor descended into one of his orgasm-fueled rants about how good Yuuri was, how sexy Yuuri was, how talented he was with his tongue and his hands and every other part of his body…Yuuri felt like he could come just from hearing it. Victor was so sincere and so filled with single-minded affection, how else could Yuuri respond when he heard him talk like that? It filled his heart up so much it hurt to keep it all in.

Right before Yuuri could feel that Victor was about to finish, Victor roughly pushed him away, grabbed him under the arms, and yanked him up for an almost violent kiss.

“Yuuri,” Victor exhaled, “I need…to be inside you…please, please….”

“But,” Yuuri struggled to say as Victor greedily shoved his tongue inside his mouth, “I’m not….”

“Let me, let me,” Victor insisted. “Here.”

He let go of Yuuri and jumped up. There was a smattering of large, plush pillows at the top of the bed, and Victor grabbed the biggest one and set it near the edge of the bed. “Here, lay down here, I’ll be right back.”

Yuuri watched him run out of the room, naked and erect, too overcome with lust to speak more than a few words at a time. Yuuri laid down on his stomach, shoving his arms under the pillow and setting his chin atop it. It hurt to lay down like this, he was so hard, but the pain made everything more intense. He loved it.

Victor burst back in carrying the bottle of lube he’d fetched from their toiletry bag.

“Oh, good boy, Yuuri, you’re such a good boy,” he said, settling himself beside Yuuri on the bed, and gently lifted the negligee up and away from Yuuri’s ass.

Yuuri shuddered. He squeezed the pillow in anticipation as he heard Victor popping open the bottle. When he felt Victor’s fingers enter him, he let out a deep moan and buried his face in the pillow.

“So good, so good,” Victor said, rubbing his hand up and down Yuuri’s back. Yuuri relaxed a bit and let himself get lost in the raw feeling of Victor’s touch.

It felt like whole minutes were passing, hours even, as Victor worked him open with slow, deliberate precision. Yuuri whined and squirmed against the bed. “Victor,” he pleaded, “I’m not gonna make it if you keep this up….”

“Yes you are,” Victor told him, in that tone of voice that sent waves down Yuuri’s spine. It was gently authoritative, halfway between encouragement and demand, and he only used it in bed. Normally, Yuuri wasn’t a huge fan of being told outright what to do, but when it was Victor, everything “normal” melted away.

“You’re going to wait,” Victor said, his breathing labored from his own restraint, “until I’ve decided you’re ready…and then….”

Victor removed his fingers and straddled Yuuri’s body. Yuuri went up on his knees eagerly. Victor slid into Yuuri easily, like there was no barrier that he couldn’t cross, and rocked into him with reckless fervor. Yuuri cried out and held onto the pillow tighter and tighter with each thrust. The loss of friction from the mattress was driving him crazy, but wouldn’t it last much, much longer if he tried to come just like this?

Victor, meanwhile, was pressing kisses to Yuuri’s sweat-covered neck, gripping his hips with the most possessive fury, completely gone to his basest instincts. Yuuri gasped every time Victor’s beard scratched his wildly sensitive skin, and he could feel himself on the verge of tears for how blissfully overwhelmed he was.

It was the moment just before Victor finished that did it for him. Yuuri felt him grip his hips painfully tight, pushing into him like Yuuri was just an extension of Victor’s own body, and it sent him over the edge with Victor following close after. Yuuri let out a keen that rose into a sharp cry, his legs tensing and grip tightening in the pillow. Victor’s continued thrusts sent waves through him, extending the sensations farther and longer than Yuuri had ever felt before. Victor was grunting and exhaling stuttered breaths behind him, and Yuuri’s heart swelled.

Once the aftershocks were gone, Yuuri found room in his hazy mind to wonder if they had, perhaps, been too loud.

Victor took Yuuri’s chin and turned his face toward him for a kiss. Yuuri flipped over onto his back and they laid there for several long, ecstatic seconds, just kissing and touching one another.

Eventually, Yuuri’s hand made its way down Victor’s torso to cup one firm asscheek. “Your turn?” he asked.

Two hours later, they laid together in bed, a tangle of limbs and sweat and who knew what else, boneless and exhausted.

“My God, Yuuri,” Victor said, his wrist over his eyes. “Six times. Six.”

“I know,” replied Yuuri, his head resting on Victor’s chest. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”

**The 41 st Year**

Yuuri sat at the kotatsu, listening to the television and lazily eating a bag of potato chips. Their big white poodle Anya laid curled up against Yuuri’s thigh. She was sleeping deeply, a faint doggie snore permeating the brief silences of the room.

It was a cold April again. Yuuri had hoped he’d see less snow since they made the decision to move back to Japan, and while that was mostly true, it didn’t stop him from being cranky when he felt snowflakes falling. The cold made his joints ache, and he hated the idea that he was, by all accounts, an old man now.

Anya awoke suddenly and looked towards the front door, her tail wagging wildly. When the door opened, she let out a single excited bark and skittered away. Yuuri heard Victor’s cooing and greetings interspersed with the tapping of Anya’s claws on the floor. He smiled and put another potato chip in his mouth.

“Hello, my dearest,” Victor said, walking into the room and lightly touching Yuuri’s right shoulder. Yuuri turned his face to the right and met Victor for a kiss.

“How was school today?” Yuuri asked as Victor briefly disappeared into the kitchen.

“Oh, good!” Victor called. Yuuri could hear Victor putting something away and gently chastising Anya as she tried to inspect whatever he had. “The new class of juniors has a lot of potential. There’s one boy that looks so much like Yurachka you’d think they were related. I have a really good feeling about all of them.”

Yuuri smiled. “That’s good.”

When he and Victor were still coaching, they’d decided to set up a figure skating school for new and experienced skaters. The first few years had been tough, as balancing what was essentially two full-time careers was not easy, but once they decided to retire from coaching and focus just on the school everything fell into place. They decided to re-establish in Hasetsu, using the Ice Castle rink as their headquarters. They moved in to Yuuri’s old home, Yu-Topia, which hadn’t been running as an onsen since Yuuri’s mother died, and spent all their days teaching the next generation.

Well, at least Victor had, for the past year or so.

“Guess what day it is?” Victor said as he left the kitchen. He sat down next to Yuuri at the kotatsu and thumped something heavy on the table. It seemed to be a bottle of something, though Yuuri couldn’t tell what.

“Might it be something to do with a devastatingly handsome man and his decision to marry a human potato?” Yuuri asked.

“That’s no way to address your husband,” Victor laughed.

Yuuri giggled. “Of course, Vitya, I know what day it is. Happy anniversary.”

“Happy anniversary, love.” They shared a quick kiss and Victor set to work opening the bottle.

“What is it now, forty-one years?” Yuuri laughed. “Wow. I really fooled you good, didn’t I?”

“Oh, come now,” Victor retorted. “I needed no convincing.” He poured the contents of the bottle into a small cup and passed it to Yuuri. “You were so beautiful when you were drunk and hanging off me half-naked, what could I have done?”

Yuuri snorted. He lifted the cup to his lips: his favorite brand of sake. His heart warmed as he drank it, and not just from the rush of alcohol. “Well, you met me at rock bottom, so I guess the only way to go was up.”

Victor reached out and gently ran his hand over Yuuri’s hair. Yuuri took Victor’s hand and pressed a soft kiss to his wrist. “I’m lucky to have you,” he said as the smile fell off his face. “I just wish…that I could still see you.”

There was a heavy silence in the room. Yuuri’s eyesight had started to go in a big way a few years ago. For a while, he was able to hide it, but having to go to the doctor twice a year for stronger and stronger prescriptions wasn’t something he could hide for long. Victor had found out when Yuuri went shopping for dog food and come back with a brand they both knew Anya was allergic to.

He and Victor had fought, and for a while there were just compromises. Yuuri agreed to stop driving, Victor promised not to say anything to the students. But kids were more perceptive than Yuuri realized, and all it took was a few classes before that ruse evaporated. Yuuri did more administrative work now, which was fine, but it hurt to step back.

Then one day, he’d been out walking Anya with Victor and almost walked himself and the dog into an oncoming truck. Victor’s shout saved them, but if he hadn’t been there, it might have been so much worse. That day, Yuuri accepted the fact that he was effectively blind.

He could still see shapes, and things that were very close to him. But he couldn’t see the students skating, or the images on the television, or even his husband’s own face most of the time. It had only been about two years, but Yuuri felt like he was still adjusting every single day.

Victor leaned forward and pressed a long kiss to Yuuri’s forehead. He pulled away and rested his forehead on Yuuri’s, smiling gently.

“Can you see me now?” he asked.

Victor’s blue eyes came into focus, bright and joyful and exactly as Yuuri remembered. He smiled around the lump in his throat and ran the backs of his fingers down Victor’s cheek. “Yes,” he replied quietly. “I can.”

They stayed there for a while, staring into each other’s eyes, and there was nothing else in the world besides the two of them, in this room.

Eventually, Anya whined and wiggled her way in between them, wanting attention too. Victor laughed and ruffled her fur.

“Sorry, girl, sorry,” Victor said. He gave her a kiss on the head. “I would never ignore my princess.”

“Spoiled,” Yuuri laughed.

“Well, guess what? I’m going to make us a very special dinner tonight, so you just sit there and get as drunk as you like while I work, okay?”

“But you worked all day,” Yuuri protested. “You must be tired.”

“Oh, hardly. I feel great, Yuuri, I promise.”

Before Yuuri could object further, Victor was up and out of the room. He opened the little window that let him see from the kitchen into the living room, then set to work cooking.

From the smells alone Yuuri could guess what Victor might be making, but he pushed away the impulse to try and figure it out. A surprise was much better. He petted Anya with one hand and sipped his sake with the other, listening to the television and the ambient noises of Victor in the kitchen. Victor didn’t often cook, but ever since Yuuri’s loss of vision, he’d been getting better at it.

The coziness mixed with the alcohol had Yuuri just beginning to doze off when Victor finally reentered the room.

“Okaaaaay, are you ready?” Victor asked, his voice laced with excitement. He set a steaming bowl of food in front of Yuuri, and the instant the aroma hit him he knew what it was.

“Just for my five-time gold medalist,” said Victor proudly.

Yuuri brought the piece of fried pork to his lips and tasted his mother’s katsudon. Immediately, tears flowed down his cheeks. It was so much like the meal he remembered, he could almost believe his mom was at the table with them, like it was decades ago.

“Do you like it?” Victor sounded unsure suddenly; he’d never gotten used to the sight of Yuuri crying, for any reason.

“I love it,” Yuuri practically sobbed. “It’s perfect, Victor, where did you learn to make katsudon like this?”

“Mari helped me,” Victor said. “I’ve been practicing with her for a little while.”

Yuuri wiped away tears as he continued to eat. “It’s good…it’s so good, Victor.”

“I hope I did Hiroko-san proud.”

“You did, you really did…she’d love this. _I_ love this, and I love you.”

**The 52 nd and ½ Year**

Victor didn’t die on their anniversary, or anywhere near it. It was July, the height of summer, with fireworks in the distance at the beach, when Yuuri held his hand by the hospital bed and felt the life go out of his beautiful husband. After that, Yuuri couldn’t really say he felt happy again.

That wasn’t to say that his life was terrible. He still lived at the onsen with a caretaker who made sure he could get around, gave him his food and medicine, and provided an easy companionship. Some of his old students still swung by from time to time to talk to him, and he had begun to host parties during the figure skating season for people to come by and watch the competitions. Though his eyesight had gone from horrendous to completely dark, he could still visualize the routines in his mind’s eye as he listened to the commentary.

He visited Victor’s grave every year to tell him how the season had gone and what he was doing. Yuuri had been working on a memoir for a little while, something he’d never intended to really finish until he realized how much he enjoyed doing it. The time he visited Victor to tell him that he’d been published was the proudest he’d felt in years.

Still, Yuuri only felt content, not happy. Happiness was something deeper, something he’d only felt with Victor. He was comfortable, loved, and safe…but happiness was a transcendent feeling he’d likely not feel again.

It was mid-November. His birthday was in two weeks, and he’d already told his friends and family not to plan anything for him. He knew his time was coming, and so did everyone else.

He laid in his bed, the same one he’d shared with Victor, and imagined he could hear the soft floating of the snowflakes outside the window. His caretaker was just across the hall in her bedroom, and Yuuri knew she’d wake in the morning to find him gone.

Victor had come to him in the snow, and Yuuri went to him now in the same way. He could swear he felt a familiar hand close around his own as he shut his eyes, and he followed the voice that called him.

“Yuuri!”

There was a rush of snowy wind in his face, stinging and insistent. Yuuri put up his arms to protect his eyes, and when the wind died down he blinked warily before chancing a look.

He was on a beach, the sun was high in a cloudless sky, and the waves rolled steadily around him. Yuuri looked down at and saw his own feet in the shallows, sinking gently into warm sand as the water cascaded over them. He smiled, wiggled his toes, and put his face up to the sun. It was so warm, like an embrace.

“Yuuri!” This time, he heard a distinctive bark.

He looked around, his smile wide, and saw Victor and Makkachin running towards him on the sand. Makkachin got to him first, putting her wet paws up on his legs and wagging her tail so hard her body shook. Yuuri laughed and knelt down to kiss her head and rub her ears.

“Hello, my sweet girl,” he told her. “Oh, I’ve missed you.”

“You greet the dog first and not me? At least I know it’s really you.”

Yuuri looked up and saw Victor, his beloved husband, who he had somehow lived without for the past several years, smiling at him. How had he done it? Thinking back, and looking at Victor’s face now, it was unfathomable to think he’d lived a single second in a world where there was no Victor. Without a second thought, Yuuri leapt up and launched himself into Victor’s arms. Victor caught him with a laugh, spinning them both around in a circle.

“I’ve been so _bored_ without you,” Victor said as he hugged him close.

“I’m here now,” Yuuri replied, his face buried in Victor’s shoulder. “I’m here.”

Victor set him down, took Yuuri’s face in his hands, and pressed a long, slow kiss to his lips. It had been so long since Yuuri kissed him, but it was just the same as he remembered. It was the taste of nostalgia, the cleansing of the deepest homesickness.

“I’m sorry I left you,” Victor said. “I didn’t want to leave.”

“But think of all the peace and quiet you’ve had here,” Yuuri teased.

Victor snorted. “It’s been _too_ quiet, if you ask me. Even with this one demanding all my infinite attention.”

Makkachin barked. Victor and Yuuri looked to her and saw the big piece of driftwood she had placed encouragingly at Victor’s feet. She leaned down on her front legs and wagged her tail.

“All right, all right,” Victor said, picking up the stick. “You ready, girl? Go!” He tossed the stick as far as he could down the beach and Makkachin took off running.

“Well, I’m glad you’ve had practice,” Yuuri remarked as he watched her go. “Because now _I_ am going to be demanding all your infinite attention.”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way, my love.”

**Author's Note:**

> I loved writing this, it felt so nice to write something for them again <3 And I really hope you enjoyed reading it! Please let me know what you thought with a comment, and come visit me on my [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/frozencalamari)!


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